Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
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Contributors
No full textThis is the back matter for the April 2017 issue of Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
Philadelphia’s Free Military School and the Radicalization of Wartime Officer Education, 1863–64
No full textIn 1863 leading voices from Philadelphia’s antislavery circle aligned with veteran Union offi cers to establish a school that would prepare white soldiers for offi cer examinations with the United States Colored Troops. The Philadelphia Free Military School offered a stark partisan contrast to the prevailing military education model at West Point, an institution maligned for supposedly failing to inculcate proper notions of political loyalty. The FMS succeeded in training enlisted men and noncommissioned officers in the art of command by drawing heavily from specific units with strong pro-Republican pedigrees
John Seely Hart’s “Lectures on the Public Schools of Philadelphia, 1849”
No full textThe Special Collections Research Center at Temple University Libraries recently acquired a manuscript volume of thirteen lectures delivered by John Seely Hart (1810–77) in 1849. Transcribed and illustrated by his student Samuel Sparks Fisher (1832–74), these lectures trace Hart’s perspectives on the history of the public schools of Philadelphia from 1809 to 1842 and refl ect his belief that education was a right for all citizens
Jacob Green’s Revolution: Radical Religion and Reform in a Revolutionary Age.
No full textJacob Green’s Revolution is the latest offering in a recent surge of scholarship reassessing the relationship between religion and the American Revolution. Independent historian Scott Rohrer’s book is part biography and part microhistory, telling the story of Presbyterian minister Jacob Green and the important role he played in revolutionary-era politics and reform efforts in northern New Jersey. The book’s argument is straightforward: Edwardsean Calvinism was an important source of “revolutionary energy” in the mid-Atlantic, propelling Jacob Green to support the rebelling colonists’ cause and producing “a strong reform drive during the American Revolution”
City in a Park: A History of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park System.
No full textThis is a chatty and lavishly illustrated volume that will enhance anyone’s coffee table. In chapters that combine a historic overview with focused accounts of such topics as recreational activities, transportation, historic houses, and public art, the authors offer helpful information about Philadelphia’s incomparable park system. The three fi nal chapters in particular provide a detailed account of the reorganization of park administration following disestablishment of the Fairmount Park Commission (FPC), as well as a survey of current sustainability and improvement projects. A list of parks in the appendix is especially useful
Church and Estate: Religion and Wealth in Industrial-Era Philadelphia.
No full textThomas Rzeznik’s Church and Estate provides readers with an overview of the dynamic relationship between the economic elite and their religious communities in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. Across seven chapters of crisp narrative, the author describes the rise and fall of upper-class infl uence on thereligious sphere, including attention to such topics as philanthropy, church governance, and ecclesiastical architecture. The author pays attention to patterns of religious affi liation and disaffi liation, noting the elite’s trend toward the Episcopal Church during the period under consideration. Later chapters detail the impact that economic and social change wrought on moneyed interest in churches and society. Rzeznik’s recounting and analysis of Progressive Era challenges to the wealthy and politically powerful is especially engaging. In the conclusion, the author thoughtfully considers the contemporary implications of and the lessons to be learned from the activities of this period. 
Christopher Demuth: From “Single Brother” to Celebrated Snuff Maker
No full textABSTRACT: Christopher Demuth’s early years in the Moravian community of Bethlehem, which included the traumatic transition from its “General Economy,” shaped and helped prepare him for a new career in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Trained in carpentry and millwork, Demuth went on to be the most successful tobacconist in Lancaster, specializing in snuff, which he sold throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. His extensive operation demonstrates Lancaster’s importance as a production and distribution node, as well as the signifi cant role that Pennsylvania tobacconists played in the state and national economy decades before tobacco was grown commercially in the state
Andrew Curtin and the Politics of Union
No full textABSTRACT: This article examines the elections and tenure of Governor Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania, who secured election in 1860 and reelection in 1863 at the head of a centrist political coalition that first dubbed itself the People’s Party and later became the Union Party. Although Republicans constituted the largest proportion of Curtin’s supporters, his overall success hinged on Democrat and Whig converts who refused to back a straight Republican ticket. The governor appealed to these voters by embodying a nonpartisan patriotism in rhetoric and policy. His campaigns appealed across party lines to loyal Democrats, and in his governance he regularly clashed with Washington over a host of unpopular wartime policies. Curtin’s record suggests the fl uidity of Republicanism and provides powerful evidence for the underappreciated prevalence and signifi cance of political centrism in wartime northern politics
City of Steel: How Pittsburgh Became the World’s Steelmaking Capital during the Carnegie Era
No full textThe story of Andrew Carnegie and Pittsburgh was once the stuff of popular histories and novels. Decades ago, this industrial transformation fi red the imagination, but, as heavy industry’s importance began to recede in the United States, so did public interest. Kenneth J. Kobus’s book is a welcome addition to the literature of the iron and steel revolution, restoring that history to its proper importance
Contributors
No full textThis is the contributors document for the October 2017 issue of Pennsylvania Magazine of Biography and History